Malory Ray
by NellyNoob96
Summary: My first patient death was in the winter of 1958. Jenny/Jimmy


**I shouldn't have written this. I shouldn't have. I've got too much other stuff to finish. But I had to write it. I did. I ship them. I had to. Sorry. **

My first patient death was in the winter of 1958.

Malory Ray was only eighteen years old with two bouncy sons, one of four and the other two years old. She lived with her fiancé David, who was twenty-one, in a small flat above an abandoned store in the East End of London. The flat was grim, dusty and smelt strongly of dirty nappies and sweat. Once or twice every antenatal visit, I had to lean over the railing outside the front door and breathe deeply for at least five minutes, to have some decent air. The windows were open so rarely that the frames had rusted over and refused to be prised apart again, and the faded green curtains were always shut. The only light in the flat was a portable lamp that Malory or David carried with them, and there was no shade over the hot bulb. Many times I had walked in to find a crying child with a burn mark on his finger or arm.

Malory's third baby, "I know it's a girl this time! I must be with my baby girl. I wish I do 'ave one… I will!" she had insisted, was due in the early weeks of March 1959. I had told her to prepare the flat for a coming child, which she had previously failed to do so with her sons. I brought her various equipment from Nonnatus House: more lamps, thicker blankets, and even a sterilising kit. We had cleaned the curtains and pinned them open and David had used a wrench to open the windows; which we also scrubbed until they gleamed.

I visited regularly and everything was normal. Heartbeats- mother's and baby's- were normal, Malory had no bleeding, no stomach pains, no migraines or nausea. It seemed she was set for her due date and all that remained was the long task of waiting for baby to arrive.

On the fifth of December 1958, Trixie and I were sat at the table quietly eating after our evening shifts. The Sisters and Cynthia had retired to bed long ago, and the pair of us would be soon. Trixie almost fell asleep into her dinner!

"Would you like another?" She mumbled, pointing to a large plastic box holding a few cheese sandwiches. I held up the last half of my second.

"I'm alright thank you, Trixie."

She took another for herself and ate it in three bites. I laughed and she turned a little pink around the ears.

A knock at the front door silenced us. There were more knocks, all coming in frantic continuous streams. I ran to the visitor before they could wake the others and my heart jumped into my throat.

David Ray stood on the steps before me. His youngest son clung to his body like a vice. David's face was red from running and there was sweat covering his brow. A gleam of red brushed across his cheek and for a moment I believed he had been in a fight.

Then, he gushed, "Nurse, you 'ave to come quickly! It's Mal. I don't know what's wrong with 'er!"

"David, what happened?"

He seemed to be struggling for breath. "She fell, I fink. I weren't there, I was working. The boys were there. Jack, tell the Nurse what 'appened!"

The little boy in his arms looked utterly terrified, staring at me with wide tearful eyes. Trixie was by my side in the doorway now, and held out a hand to touch his head.

"It's all right Jack, you can tell us. Tell us what happened to your Mummy."

Jack plucked up the courage to speak and said in a small voice, "Mummy fell over and didn't get up. I got Jack and we sat wiv her 'til Daddy got home."

"I found them, still on the floor." David said, when Jack shrunk into himself again, his young words all used up. "I lifted her up and lay 'er on the bed. Still there now, I reckon. Left Jack wiv 'er."

Trixie and I hurried out the door with our packs, practically running with them along the dimly lit streets.

"David, why is there blood on your cheek?" I asked.

"She was bleedin'." He said quietly, his voice strained as if it hurt him to say it.

Along the way, David told us that that morning; Malory had risen early and was sick. She was complaining of a headache and he had sent her to back bed with the thought that a good sleep would cure it. He left for work and told the boys to keep an eye on her. When he returned, more than twelve hours later, she was unconscious on the carpet beside the bed. Tom and Jack were curled into eachother watching her. There was a smattering of brown blood around her waist and on her legs.

The hospital sent an ambulance immediately. Malory was given morphine and bundled onto a stretcher. She was put in the back of the ambulance and whisked away, David close by her side. Trixie and I stood helplessly in the doorway of their grubby flat, Jack's trembling hand in hers and Tom's in mine. Both boys were crying silently, the salty tears leaving tracks in their grimy faces.

Malory was taken into a Caesarean section as soon as she reached the hospital. The doctors wanted the baby delivered as quick as possible, in case it was in danger. Malory fitted on the operating table and had to be heavily sedated to keep her from causing herself more harm. David almost had to be sedated himself, he was so frantic. He shouted and protested and urged for information, until his fiancé was finally wheeled out of surgery.

The baby was dead before it was fully delivered. It was a little girl.

Malory never regained consciousness. Her husband sat by her bedside for two days, holding her hand and whispering to her. The boys came once, to say hello to their Mummy, and then to say goodbye to her when their Father told them they had to. Each kissed her forehead and told her they loved her.

They slept in a spare room in Nonnatus House for those two days. We were not allowed to stay with them at the flat, alone, and we couldn't bear to leave them on their own after what they had seen. The Sisters needed no persuasion; they agreed the boys could stay as long as they needed. Tom barely spoke, despite being a full two years older than Jack, who babbled on to us all about the wonders of colouring and soft ball games.

Two days since Malory had fallen, David called us on the House telephone. Malory had never woken up, and had died in his arms in the early morning. We accompanied his sons home to him, and together they fixed up the flat to the best standards I had ever seen it in. On the newly polished windowsill in the living room, they placed a picture of Malory; and beside it a figurine of a child in pink swaddle clothes, to remember the lost baby. They named her Grace Malory.

David thanked us for taking care of his sons and each boy kissed us on the cheek, bidding us farewell as they shut the front door of the flat. As we walked home again, Trixie dabbing her tear-filled eyes with a handkerchief and moaning about her "blasted makeup!" I could only think of one thing. I could only think of how, in some twisted way, Malory had gotten her wish.

She was with her baby girl.

The first time I cried over Malory Ray, it was a few months later, in early March. The day her baby was supposed to arrive.

I sat on a bench in the park and watched the clouds in the sky fly past with the wind. I had just finished with a patient in the same block of flats where Malory's family lived. Jack had been colouring on the pavement outside the front door. My stomach knotted at the guilt. I could have easily crouched beside him and asked to borrow a colour. We would have gone inside for lukewarm tea and biscuits, David and I would have talked whilst the boys played. But my head had told me to turn and leave, sadness crushing down on my chest so I could hardly breathe.

Malory was the first woman under my care to die. It was worse that the child also could not have been saved. Surely it was natural for me to feel guilty. Everyone told me I shouldn't, but I just couldn't stop it bubbling up to the surface and spilling over.

A mother pushing her baby in a pram went past then, and I realised that there were tears tumbling down my cheeks. I brushed them away hastily but more filled their place too fast for me to remove. I gave up. My elbows sunk to my knees and my face to my hands. Sobs wrecked through my body as three months of pent-up emotion burst out. No one stopped to ask if I was alright and I was glad they didn't. Part of me insisted I didn't deserve the sympathy.

My eyes were tightly closed and I didn't notice someone sit down beside me until a hand was placed on the small of my back. I would have jumped in surprise and leapt away, had a voice not spoken as soon as I felt the hand. It was a soft voice, soothing. I could barely hear the words he was saying, yet I instantly felt calmer and my sobs subsided to gentle hiccups. I sat straight then, brushing my hair out of my face. His hand was still on my back, rubbing in slow circles.

"It wasn't your fault Jenny." He said, his voice croaking with concern.

"You don't know that Jimmy, you're not a doctor."

"Yes, but the others told me what happened to her. It was nothing to do with what you did."

I turned to face him, my face screwed up in a wet red grimace. "You don't know that." I said flatly. Jimmy sighed and removed his hand from my back, running it through the hair over my ear.

"Well, if I can't tell you, you'll have to realise by yourself. You will Jenny. You will."

I was about to protest his insistence about my innocence in the matter, but my voice choked. I shook my head and sighed, exhaustion overwhelming. Jimmy cupped my face and laid my head against his shoulder.

"It's alright Jen."

I smiled as my eyes slipped shut. Jimmy was warm and comfortable. He smelt faintly of old paper and cigarettes. His arms were wrapped around me and his chin rested on my hair and I felt safer than I had in months.

"Thank you Jimmy. Thank you." I mumbled, pressing my face into his shirt. His arms tightened and I felt him kiss my head.

I woke in my own bed, back at Nonnatus House, with a hot cup of tea at my bedside and a warm feeling in my chest.


End file.
